4

We passed more and more houses, and soon we were in the middle of a city.

‘This must be Rome,’ sighed Tilly. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Rome.’

‘Me too, but given a choice, I’d skip the whole chariot and sword and scary-men thing. I’d kind of prefer to be here in our real time. I’d like to be travelling by air-conditioned bus and staying in a nice hotel, with a leisure centre and a pizza restaurant.’

Tilly laughed, and for one small second as I laughed with her, I managed to forget how scared I was.

Just then we pulled up next to a huge wooden gate. The men jumped down from the chariot and waved at us to follow them. The boy gave us a sympathetic look. It didn’t make me feel better. Did he know something we didn’t?

I looked all around, hoping to see Saturn, but there was no sign of him. Had we lost him forever?

Tilly grabbed her schoolbag and we jumped down from the chariot. The firm ground under my feet felt strange. The two men were talking to another man.

‘Maybe we should make a run for it while they’re distracted?’ I whispered.

Tilly shook her head. ‘Haven’t you seen those swords? They don’t look like they’re used for decoration. I wish I had a gun in my schoolbag.’

‘I thought you were a pacifist.’

‘I am, but this is an emergency. And if I had a gun, I wouldn’t use it. I’d just threaten them with it.’

‘Anyway, these people have never seen guns,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t know to be afraid.’

‘That’s true,’ said Tilly, rooting through her schoolbag. ‘I wonder if they’d be afraid of this cheese sandwich I forgot to eat at lunchtime?’

The sight of the sandwich reminded me of something.

‘I’m starving,’ I said.

Tilly, who is always really generous, carefully tore the sandwich in two, and we started to eat.

It was totally weird. There we were in Ancient Rome, eating the food that Tilly had prepared that morning in her nice, safe kitchen, back when we were living our real lives. How could things change so much, so quickly?

Just as we were wiping the last crumbs from our mouths, one of the men stepped forward and took Tilly by the arm. He led her inside the building, and far too afraid to be left on my own, I followed.

We were in a huge open area, a bit like a market place. People were pushing and shoving. The man led us to a small platform and indicated that we should climb up.

‘Maybe we’re going to be in a play,’ I said hopefully as I went up the steps. ‘Or this could be the Roman version of The X Factor. Have you got your tin whistle in your bag?’

‘I doubt if it’s The X Factor,’ said Tilly. ‘Even Simon Cowell couldn’t get away with treating the contestants like this.’

The man climbed on to the platform beside us and began to shout out something. Gradually people began to walk over, and soon a crowd had gathered. The man suddenly seemed nice and friendly, patting our hair and smiling at us.

‘Maybe things aren’t so bad,’ said Tilly. ‘This could be where they bring people who are lost, so their relatives can find them – sort of like customer services in the supermarket. Pity he doesn’t know that none of our relatives is going to be born for thousands of years. No one’s showing up to claim us any time soon.’

Suddenly I could feel the blood draining from my face.

‘Tilly,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve just remembered something important about Roman times.’

‘What?’

I could hardly get the words out. ‘In Roman times … they had … slaves.’

‘OMIGOD!’ she gasped. ‘This guy isn’t trying to reunite us with our families. He’s trying to sell us.’

The man was still talking. He pointed at our crumpled uniforms and the crowd laughed.

Tilly put her arm round me. ‘OK, so we don’t like wearing these ugly uniforms either,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s a school rule. We don’t get a choice in the matter.’

I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but it didn’t help. I was too scared.

And where was Saturn? Why wasn’t he here to save us?

A few people stepped forward and stared extra closely at us. One woman climbed on to the platform. She looked inside my ears, and then she took Tilly’s hands and examined her fingernails. Tilly grabbed her hands back and the crowd laughed again.

Just then the crowd went silent as a huge, tall man pushed his way to the front. He was dark-skinned and hairy, and on one of his arms, a huge deep scar ran all the way from his wrist to his shoulder. He was the most evil-looking man I had ever seen.

‘That man looks a bit like the ogre in the pantomime we went to last Christmas,’ said Tilly.

‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘But in the pantomime, he was scary and funny at the same time. This guy seems to be concentrating on the scary part.’

The ogre looked closely at Tilly and me, and then he spoke to the man on the platform.

Tilly held my hand.

‘It’s going to be OK, Lauren,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

If it was going to be OK, then why was Tilly shaking so badly? And why was she squeezing my hand like she was trying to grind every one of my bones to a fine powder?

After a long, heated discussion, the evil-looking ogre loosened a leather pouch that hung from his belt. He pulled two coins from it and handed them to the first man. Then they shook hands and the first man walked away. The ogre said something unintelligible to Tilly and me, and then he took each of us by the arm and led us from the market place.